Research School Network: Children’s wellbeing matters most School matters. Learning matters. But what matters most is the emotional wellbeing of all our children.

School matters. Learning matters. But what matters most is the emotional wellbeing of all our children.

During 2024, it can feel like report after report is showing us that a greater focus on children’s wellbeing in schools is needed. At the beginning of the year, ImpactEd’s study[1] drew our attention to the vital role that a ​‘sense of belonging’ has on positive engagement with school, highlighting the relationship between pupils reporting feeling respected and able to be themselves, with higher levels of attendance.

More recently, the Children’s Society has published troubling data[2] that suggests that children are significantly less happy than at any point since their studies began 14 years ago. The comparative figures on how children feel about school as to opposed to other aspects of their life, are worrying.

How much should the education system be concerned about this?

Looking at the findings of the child specific consultation by Ofsted as part of its ​‘Big Listen’, children are very keen for this to be taken seriously. ​‘How happy children are at school’ is at the top of the list of 5 priorities for the inspectorate from children[3] through this exercise (although Ofsted do not state explicitly that the 5 are ranked) and a flavour of wellbeing is easy to spot running through the others.

One way in which schools can support children’s wellbeing is through high quality social and emotional learning opportunities which encompass: self awareness, self management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making[4] but doing this well in a UK context seems particularly challenging.

When seeking to replicate the successful implementation of programmes designed to improve children’s social and emotional development from an international evidence based, trials funded by the EEF and NCIER encountered significant implementation challenges leading to disappointing results.[5] A common thread seems to be the prioritisation (and therefore time and resource allocation) given to this aspect of children’s development.

The ​‘Improving Social and Emotional Learning in Primary Schools’ guidance report took this into account and attempts to highlight the common components of successful SEL programmes and translate them into more palatable actions for schools in this country.

Over the last 9 months, Huntington Research School has been working in partnership with education leaders from across the city of Leeds to develop a collective approach to improve outcomes for children in the city, particularly for those experiencing disadvantage. Following an extensive and rigorous process scrutinising the issues at play, the single most pressing issue identified by the partnership was that of social and emotional learning.

One major barrier to developing this work is the lack of consistent assessment opportunities being used by educators post age 5 that focus on the holistic development of children: considering both ​‘academic’ and ​‘non academic’ skills. The Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (the statutory assessment completed at the end of Reception year) is the final opportunity to do this but extending this approach to older children could yield significant benefits, as laid out by N8 Research Partnership.[6] A survey of school staff as part of the Leeds partnership revealed just how varied the picture is – some schools have no defined approach to assessing children’s social and emotional development, others have developed their own approaches (often based on observation coupled with professional judgement) whilst others are using a variety of different standardised assessments. Responding to this complexity is likely to become one of several foci of any future development of the partnership in Leeds.

The evidence of need and desire for change to include a greater focus on children’s emotional wellbeing exists. However, when working through a plan of response with the vast amount of expertise from educational leadership in Leeds, it’s very clear that the solution is not simple, will take significant time and will need significant support for those working in schools. This issue cannot be solved by any one single intervention but by a complete rethink about how we support the most fundamental priorities of our children’s development.


[1] Impacted Group. (2024). Understanding attendance.

[2] The Children’s Society. (2024). The Good Childhood Report 2024.

[3] Ofsted. (2024, August 10). Hearing feedback, accepting criticism, and building a better Ofsted: The response to the Big Listen. GOV.UK.

[4] Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). (n.d.). What is the CASEL framework?

[5] Humphrey, Neil & Hennessey, Alexandra & Wigelsworth, Michael & Lendrum, Ann & Pert, Kirsty & Joyce, Craig & Stephens, Emma & Wo, Lawrence & Squires, Garry & Woods, Kevin & Calam, Rachel & Turner, Alex. (2016). A cluster randomized controlled trial of the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) curriculum. Journal of School Psychology. 58. 73 – 89. 10.1016/j.jsp.2016.07.002.

[6] N8 Research Partnership. (n.d.). Child of the North: An evidence-based plan for addressing the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) assessment and support crisis